Dead Island is a surprisingly good game. It borrows a lot of elements from games like Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising, but it manages to provide a unique experience in its own right. A few glaring flaws really bring down the experience, however, the first time you get punched in the face by a level 7 thug and go flying into the air to land sprawled on your back, all will be forgiven as you pick yourself from the dirt, grab a nearby shovel, and proceed to demonstrate to the zombie what life is all about!
B-grade horror movie fans are in for a treat. Movies like Dawn of the Dead engender a weird fascination, there is just something in the ridiculous nature of those movies that pique are interest, make us want to watch them. In the course of the movie, all that corny voice-acting, the screaming and shrieking, the insanely gruesome and bloody fighting scenes, all seem par for the course. This is true for Dead Island as well. The story and fighting play out very much like the aforementioned movies but seem very natural and integral to the experience.
The landscape is lush and beautiful holiday destination but eerily silent at the same time, giving a true sense of calamity and a sense of being alone in a very hostile world. Zombies are plentiful, but so are the weapons. You can use anything from blocks of wood to crowbars and sickles to dismember and behead the zombies that are desperately trying to make a meal of you.
The Game
You're on an island on a vacation. Suddenly people are turning into zombies. You are immune and can save “The World”, so to speak.
You start off by choosing one of four characters specializing in blunt, sharp, throwing and ranged weapons. Each character will have certain advantages as well as disadvantages regarding speed and stamina and so on. You gain XP points as you progress, killing zombies and completing tasks, not to mention bonus points for critical hits and breakage of bones. These points can then be invested in a tech tree to develop your character in true RPG style. Unfortunately the character development is not too deep and there really isn't much difference among the 4 characters.
As mentioned earlier, you are immune to the zombie disease. Because of this, you, and your 3 other friends if you're playing co-op, are sent out into to perform various tasks “essential” for the survival of the survivors. The tasks range from rescuing certain people, to finding miscellaneous odds and ends to assist in your escape to finding medical and food supplies, etc. The odd thing here is that despite there being piles of supplies all over the place, you still have to go to specific locations and pick up exactly those piles of supplies that are marked for retrieval.
The island is actually quite large, requiring alternate modes of transport. This is where the vehicles come in. The vehicle handling is a bit hit and miss, but overall, it is fun to go around ploughing through masses of zombies as they stumble about minding their own business and chewing on the guts of their fallen comrades! The vehicles also come in very handy for completing various tasks such as transporting people and picking up some of those essential supplies required to survive any zombie apocalypse.
All is not well in the game though. There are a lot of bugs and clipping issues. Sometimes certain mission objectives are not achieved simply because some arbitrary trigger hasn't been tripped. This can get very frustrating in certain missions as you literally run back and forth trying to figure out what you missed. The weapons in the game are very interesting and satisfying to use. They can be modified on a workbench using various blueprints that you get your hands on. While this is a lot of fun, the weapons degrade as you use them. This would normally not be a problem, but when your weapon can barely survive cleaving through half a dozen zombies or so, its not really that much fun anymore. What is the point of wielding a baseball bat implanted with a head of nails when you can't use it for more than 5 minutes at a time?
Conclusion
All said and done, Dead Island is a surprisingly good game. It borrows a lot of elements from games like Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising, but it manages to provide a unique experience in its own right. A few glaring flaws really bring down the experience, however, the first time you get punched in the face by a level 7 thug and go flying into the air to land sprawled on your back, all will be forgiven as you pick yourself from the dirt, grab a nearby shovel, and proceed to demonstrate to the zombie what life is all about!
Details:
Developer: Techland
Publisher: Deep Silver
Genre: First person horror action-adventure RPG
Platforms: PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
ESRB Rating: M
Price: Rs. 2299 approx (Steam)
Ratings:
Graphics: 3.5
Sound: 3.5
Gameplay: 4
Plot: 3
Value for Money: 3.5
Overall: 3.5 out of 5
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